A Peculiar Friendship
by Tiggy the Hopeless Romantic
Summary: Sometimes a friendship can be more than a friendship. Sometimes feelings of love bubble under the surface. Sometimes realationshps that seemed as strong as rock crumble over time. Elphaboq Complete
1. Eight

"Hey Lizard Girl, wanna go for a swim?"

"Yeah, Greenie, let's go swimming. Little Frogs like you like water." Then a terrified yelp was heard.

That was enough, for nine-year-old Boq. He shot across the schoolyard to where three older boys surrounded a tiny, green girl. One had lifted her about a foot off of the ground. She kicked, but it didn't do her any good.

"Let her go!" Boq said, much more confidently than he felt.

One of the boys laughed. "Why?"

"I'll.. I'll tell Mrs. Alsnipp you were the ones who let the ducks into the schoolhouse!" Boq quickly decided. The three bullied looked at each other, and dropped the green eight-year-old.

He offered her a hand to help her up off of the hard ground. She took it, hesitantly. "Why did you save me?"

He blinked. "Well, you were scared. I wanted to help you. I don't see why you're surprised. You never bothered anyone, why should anyone bother you?"

She looked down. "I would've died if they had dropped me in the pond. I'm allergic to water. Once, when I was five, my sister locked me outside in the rain, and it burned me. Papa says it's the Unnamed God's way of punishing me, but I don't know what I need to be punished for. When Papa punishes me, he just sends me to bed without supper."

His eyes were wide. Water _hurt her_? And everyone else almost let it happen? He didn't understand. "Well, it's good I was here," he said.

"Yeah."

The two of them walked over to the far end of the schoolyard, as far from the pond as they could get. "They didn't hurt you, did they?"

"No," She kicked her shoe into the dirt, not sure what to say, She never had spent much time with other people. "I don't even know your name," she said after a long, awkward pause.

"I'm Boq. My dad is mayor of Nest Hardings."

"Elphaba Thropp."

Boq's eyes widened. The name 'Thropp' had jogged his memory. "Oh! You're the Eminent Thropp's great-granddaughter!"

She nodded. "Yeah. Mama told me I'm going to be Eminent Thropp. I don't know if I want to be."

"Then don't be," he said. To children, the future could be that easily changed. "What do you want to be?"

She shrugged. "Maybe... a teacher..."

"Then be a teacher." He smiled awkwardly.

"I want to be a farmer. My uncle has a really big farm, with horses and cows. I like cows!" he said, which made her laugh.

"Does he have horses?"

"Not really, but he has a Horse who works for him."

"I like horses," she said.

"When I'm a farmer, I'll make sure to have horses, and you can ride one whenever you want."

"We'll still be friends when you're a farmer?"

"We'll always be friends, Elphie." With those five simple words, he made a promise that would continue affecting them forever.

The teacher called them all in from recess then. Elphaba and Boq crossed paths with the bullies, and she tried to shrink away. He grabbed her hand, and led her back to the school.

Elphaba had never had a friend before.


	2. Sixteen

"So you're leaving tomorrow?" she asked, trying to keep all emotion at bay. _Of course _he was leaving.

"In the morning," he said with a little meek smile. "I'm leaving to meet the train at around five. No need to get up so early to see my off."

"Alright." She smiled at him.

"Elphie, please, please do not suddenly develope your femininity and cry. I've never seen you cry, and I don't think I care to."

She glared at him. Truthfully, she was closer to tears than she would have liked to admit. "Shut up, Boq."

He was a year older than her, and would be heading off to Shiz University in the morning. He wouldn't be returning for the summer- his family didn't have the money for him to travel back and forth. When he had told her he planned on going to University, she had simply decided to go as well. But she was young, and at sixteen, Shiz was disinclined to admit her to Crage Hall. She would have to wait a year to join him.

She knew this year would pass slowly.

He placed a hand on her bony shoulder. He was tall for a 'little Munchkin', but she had grown taller than him the summer she had turned thirteen. Their friendship had always been close, she the outcast, and he protected her. It had been that way for years.

"I should go home. My father won't let me hear the end of it if I'm too late."

"Good-"

"No!" She objected.

"What is it?"

"Don't tell me good-bye. That's what you say when you're never going to see someone again. I'll see you soon enough." She turned from him, headed toward the road that led back to her house. "But Boq?" She turned back around, balling her skirt up in one hand.

"What Elphie?"

"I'll miss you, is all," she said quietly, shyly.

He stepped forward. Standing close again, he could see her eyes were wet. He fished around his pocket for a kerchief. She wiped at her eyes before the water could burn her. Boldly, she kissed his cheek.

He nearly jumped. He didn't know why, other than an impulse, but he kissed her on the lips then, quickly chastely.

They parted.


	3. Seventeen

"Elphie!" He said as she stepped down from the train platform. "Elphie, is it really you?"

Elphaba allowed him to offer a hand to help her down. "Boq, you've only been away for a little over a year. I'm still green and lanky, and I am still me."

He rolled his eyes. _Can't she let me get worked up over her arrival. She's my... girlf- friend. _"Well, I'm still glad to see you. How was the trip? Your train went through the Emerald City didn't it?"

"It did..." But she paused, uncomfortable.

"What's bothering you? Are you alright? Did something happen on the trip?" He was suddenly frightened for her.

"I-I'm fine."

"Elphaba, please talk to me." He grabbed her hands gently. "Something is bothering you."

She bit at her lip. "Boq, I don't want to be your... I want to make a fresh start here. I don't want to be your little... oh I don't know, girlfriend? from Munchkinland. I don't want to complicate things for you. The last thing you need is me hovering over your head like a green cloud."

He balked. "What are you talkng about? You aren't a burden."

She shook her head at him. "Hush. I made up my mind before I even left Munchkinland. Just pretend you never knew me."

He frowned. "I really don't see what you're getting at, Elphaba. But I can't force you to be anything you don't want to be... just before we bury the past..." He kissed her lips quickly, sighed, and nodded. "Hello Miss, my name is Boq, and I'm from Nest Hardings. I was told to be here to meet a Miss Elphaba Thropp at the station and escort her to the University."

She smiled at him weakly. "Thank you, Master Boq. For everything."

With the look in her eyes, he knew that wasn't the end.


	4. Eighteen, Part One

It was Lurlinemas season, and the town outside of Shiz was busier than ever. Boq and Elphaba were, for once, alone and off of campus, trying to beat the holiday crowds. And they were enjoying the oppourtunity to actually speak together. "And your little crush on my roommate?"

"You told me to pretend we never happened!" He said, exasperated. "Elphie, please don't-"

"I'm kidding, Munchkin," she said laughing hard. Her expression turned wistful, something he couldn't quite read. "I can hardly blame you."

"C'mere" he said, putting an arm around her waist, impulsively. He was prepared to be slapped, or at least scolded, but she didn't object. "You've been so quiet lately."

"I don't like Madame Morrible. I just know she had something to do with Doctor Dillamond's death."

"Elph-"

"No, I'm serious. She gives me a bad feeling, and I don't know what to make of it. And worse, everyone-" She paused to give him a pointed look "-just lets it all happen. Boq, you know he was murdered."

"I know. I believe you, Elphie. I do, really. Many people do."

"Then why doesn't anyone do anything?!" She was completely exasperated. She took a step away from him, squeezing her eyes shut. She couldn't recall anyone, not even her sister, see her get so emotional. No, everyone thought she was completely stoic. She was an unemotional rock. She was unchanging, as unchanging as the stars.

She didn't want to live like that. She couldn't, not for much longer.

"Elphaba, hush." He didn't know what he was doing. Elphaba was always the sensible one. He was the one following some emotional impulse.

"I don't understand."

That was when he made a decision. "Let's go back to Shiz and drop these packages off." She nodded toward him, meekly and followed him back.

---

His roommate wasn't home. No one bothered to stop her from entering the boys' dormitory. Everyone else had their own issues to deal with. She sat down on his bed, trying to get herself to calm down. "You're still shaking," he said after studying her for a long minute.

"I know," she said softly.

He sat beside her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You can't stop living."

"But others lives are at stake! The Animals... and Boq, you know the Animals are scapegoats, meant to placate Munchkinlander farmers."

He could tell she was on the verge of panicking. He did the first thing that came to mind, which was to get her to stop talking. To get her to stop talking, he kissed her.

This wasn't the usual pecks they had occasionally shared. She resisted, surprised for a minute, but then something clicked. She let her barrier fall to the ground.

Some time later, they were still alone. He certaintly hadn't planned on _that _happening, but it had. Elphaba had curled up like a green cat beside him, streaching.

"Love you Elphie. It'll all work out. I promise," he said.

"I love you too, Boq." But she couldn't quite believe everything would be OK. She knew it wouldn't be able to be OK ever again, but she allowed herself to revel in that moment...


	5. Eighteen, Part Two

Boq gazed around the room, uneasily. One important part of his life was very, very missing.

Morrible had lectured them, on how _Miss Elphaba Thropp _was not the simple schoolgirl they had been led to believe she was. She was a dangerous criminal, and a terrorist to boot.

Funny, no one quite believed that. Oh, to be sure, Avaric and the sillier of the girls were telling everyone, gossiping, claiming they knew something was 'off' all along. Of course, in reality, while they might not have _liked _Elphaba, they knew she was harmless. Nessarose was crying bitter tears, Glinda looked stoic.

He tried to get his mind wrapped around it all. Eversince he had been a child, Elphaba had been around. She... was gone? He couldn't understand that. What could have sent her down this path?... What had happened to her?

"Miss Glinda?" He tried. If anyone would know...

"Oh Boq... Please not now."

He cursed himself. That silly crush he had had on Glinda. It felt rather ridiculous now. "Please... this isn't about that. What happened to her?"

Glinda closed her eyes for a long minute. "She's gone.. she disapeared like smoke... she told me to be strong. And then she left."

"But how, Glin, I don't understand. What do you mean?"

"She's in the City, still. Or at least, I think she is. She wouldn't tell me where she was going, and she wouldn't. I don't think she knew herself." The blonde girl sniffled. Suddenly she wrapped her arms around Boq. "I'm afraid for her."

He awkwardly patted her back. "She's stronger than you think. She's put up with alot, and she'll be alright."

Oddly, embracing Glinda didn't do anything for him. He quietly finished his last year at Shiz. He began courting Miss Milla, and not long after his graduation, he married her.

It didn't quite feel right.


	6. Twentythree

If someone were to ask her, she would admit she had no idea what she was doing. At that moment, she was curled up under a man's arm, looking up contently at her ceiling, trying to remember at what time she had been told to meet at the church, to get her final briefing before she set out to assasinate a school marm, and attempting to figure out if she was pregnant or not.

No, she best not think about things.

What had she gotten herself _into?_

She could remember watching Glinda's carriage fade into the distance. She could remember sleeping in an alley, and she could remember getting mixed up in the Resistance. She could remember being told she would be the one to kill Madame Morrible.

It was the whole issue that involved her having a genuine tribal prince in her bed that had her concerned. And the possible child in her womb was also frustrating.

Funny, she was sure she had told herself not to fall in love with him. Their relationship was to merely be a physical one. A release of energy. She had always cared for him merely as a friend... or she had told herself that for a long time.

Then everything had gotten fuzzy.

Perhaps the worst part- worse than the fact that her lover was a married prince, and she was maybe having his child- was the fact that she had an unusual feeling in the back of her heart.

Guilt.

It wasn't for Sarima. There was no sense of female kinship. She didn't so much care that Fiyero had a wife.

It was the fact that a chunk of her heart was sitting in Munchkinland, living a simple farm life. She didn't know if she felt like she was betraying Boq, or as if she was lying to Fiyero, or as if she was fooling herself.

She didn't know anything.


	7. Thirty Eight

So much had changed. Times had changed. Politics, money, fashion, everything.

They were no different.

His breath was taken away, and he was suddenly thirty years younger, seeing a frightened girl in a schoolyard. He didn't know whether to run to her and take her in his arms or call the authorities.

Because the battered, broken woman that stood in front of him just was not Elphaba Thropp, the eldest daughter of Frex and Melena.

No, she was the Wicked Witch of the West, and hell bent on revenge. Her once soft, smooth black hair was a mess, knotted in a severe bun at the nape of her neck. Her black dress was dirty, and her hat as well. But... that wasn't the worst part.

The worst part was the look in her eyes. When she had been young her eyes had always been undeniably beautiful. Soft and warm chocolate brown, with little flecks of gold and green. They had been innocent eyes, of a girl who loved and wore her heart on her sleeve.

That was _gone_.

All he could see was those eyes, turned cold by pain and suffering and lonliness.

"Boq." She said softly, taking him in.

He tried to smile. He tried to assure himself that Elphaba was still in there, still holding a part of him. "Miss Elphie."

Later, weeks later, it was all over. Milla had taken his arm, trying to reassure him, or something. She didn't know, and would never know what had once been.

No one knew but him...

**The End**


End file.
